Mountains, Paper Money & Valleys
"In neighborhoods where mostly single people live, the tea comes in bags. Beşiktaş is a special case: There, they drink coffee instead. Tropical fruits are mostly in Bebek and Moda, although residents of Beylikdüzü sure love their pineapples. The elderly always juice their pomegranates, and alcohol is consumed in all neighborhoods, although what kind varies. If you don't find condoms in the trash, you will definitely encounter diapers. In lower-income districts, the toilet paper is thinner." recounts Abbas, who migrated to Istanbul almost four years ago.
To acquire such intimate knowledge of the city is not easily achieved. Traditionally known as the paper collectors (kağıt toplayıcıları) among other names, the informal recycling workers of Turkey walk four to twenty kilometers a day, pulling their heavy loaded carts to earn their bread out of trash. They form a patchy network, often invisible by circumstance and by design.
Growing up, the mysterious figures with two-wheeled carts and, more recently, ancient retrofitted cars with enormous sacks filled with stuff, have always been a curiosity. I would watch in awe as sun-kissed people would fly past me, up a steep slope, dragging a mountain by the side of the road as they went along. I would wonder who they were, what they were doing, where they were headed. Besides their super strength and speed, they seemed to have one more superpower: "They are invisible too!", I remember thinking as a small kid. It seemed like no one noticed, made eye contact, or even came close to them: They were immaterial.
Later, one summer, while living in Istanbul, I became friends with Abbas, who passed by my street in Beşiktaş like clockwork every day as I returned home from work. Abbas had fled Syria many years ago with his mother and two siblings. After spending some years in the southeast, they had decided to make their way to Istanbul in search of more opportunities. After working for a boss for two months without receiving any pay, he had decided to try waste picking. "I am at least my own boss," he told me, "I don't have to listen to anyone. I do whatever I want, work as much as I'd like- and I get to hum along to my favorite songs while working. Also, see what I found the other day!" He was showing me the golden-colored Casio F-91W watch on his wrist.
In an economy where unemployment is high and identities become subject to othering and exclusion, one can immediately get into this work as long as you are healthy and can purchase or rent a cart. Although most paper collectors are young men, children are often seen working in the streets to support their families while they should be in school. Women are spotted much less. Unfortunately, the collectors lack social security and health insurance in an occupation that is highly prone to risk. Aside from this precarious state, research suggests that collectors earn about the same as the proletariat in the country [1]. (Although, this number is unreliable, as various media outlets indicate that the reality may be much lower due to a there a high variance in earnings and the recent massive influx of refugees.)
Unlike their name, paper collectors gather all kinds of recyclables, such as glass, metal, and plastic. Some collectors sell directly to recycling factories, while most will sell to or work for warehouses that reimburse them usually by the weight, the unit price determined by the type of material. The warehouses, mostly temporary and unregistered, act as middlemen that sell to more significant collection sites or directly to recycling factories. These warehouses are also often home to those who have migrated, either internally or from different countries. From what he told me, Abbas lived in Tarlabaşı with his family.
I am also thinking of a valley of gecekondu (Turkey's name for informal housing - similar to the bidonville) near my mom's house in Ankara and how the outer edges connecting to the official road system had a line of makeshift warehouses. In-between them, overlooking the deep valley through a gap, was a Victorian-style faded red chaise lounge, out in the open air, chicken grazing at its feet. Some of the Roma living in the valley worked as paper collectors. With their jobs and houses, they are not simply on the peripheries; they inhabit and fill in the gaps between wor(l)ds. They bleed in and out of our consciousness. The valley is in a considerably dense and desirable neighborhood. Yet spatially, the sudden steep topography supplemented by trees along the edge offers them a blanket of invisibility, and the challenge to build anything on such land promises the indifference of any otherwise potentially interested parties. The central yet hidden location is optimal under challenging circumstances.
Although waste picking is not illegal, the collectors are occasionally confronted by the police, sometimes their carts are even taken away, leading them to lose their earnings of the day and their ability to work for some time until they acquire a new one. A 2004 regulation formalized recycling, giving municipalities and licensed firms responsibility. However, waste sorting at home is not very common and isn’t part of this new regulation. Therefore, recycling remains costly and separated collection and transportation services rare and limited. Although their livelihood was thrown further into the grey zone after this law, the estimated half-million or more paper collectors mainly inhabiting the country's three major cities remain an essential part of the recycling industry. Turkey's sector is fast-growing and is expected to be worth 3.2 billion dollars by 2025, leading to increased scrutiny and international attention.
For the past fifteen years, there have been attempts of collectivizing waste picking practices, and examples of cooperative formation to protect self-employed people like Abbas against injustice and exploitation [2][3]. A group has also started publishing a magazine called Katık to make their voices heard. Certain municipalities have formally hired waste collectors, providing a steady wage, social security and health insurance, and supplying proper equipment. However, these positive examples remain the exception; they do not always succeed.
More recently, the paper collectors couldn't work during the pandemic due to lockdowns. They were also shunned in relation to increased sensitivity regarding sanitation issues. In October 2021, a warehouse in Istanbul was raided by the police. As the tensions between the two groups rose, the workers lit the trash afire while the police fired rounds into the air to disperse the crowd. It wasn't an isolated event: Simultaneously, a massive crackdown affected many locations, the number nearing three digits. The stuff in the warehouses was seized, and many collectors apprehended. This, along with the implementation of new penalties against unlicensed picking and buying waste, was seen as part of an attempt to monopolize the recycling industry under the government's new Zero Waste Project umbrella.
The phenomenon of waste picking is not unique to Turkey: Although the contexts differ, in the streets of Cairo, the Zabaleen; in South Africa, the Bagerezi… In the 21st century, waste is very political, and we should be paying attention.
[1] Başkavak, Tahsin. “ Enformel Sektördeki Emek Süreçlerinin İlişkisel Analizi: Atık Kağıt İşçileri Örneği,” 2013.
[2] Yeni Ülke Dergisi. “Geri dönüşüm işçileri ile söyleşi,” November 2, 2021. https://www.yeniulke.com.tr/2021/geri-donusum-iscileri-ile-soylesi-2911/.
[3] http://igedder.org.tr/